Navigating Organizational Politics: The Case of Kristen Peters

When a summer intern in private wealth management at an investment firm receives poor feedback from the training program managers, what steps might she take to improve her performance and raise her stature?

First-year Columbia Business School student Kristen Peters hoped her summer internship with Taylor Reed (TR) would lead to a job offer in private wealth management. Yet mid-way through the internship, Peters received poor feedback, with TR executives citing her low energy and disregard for the firm's rules by checking her phone during classroom time. Vowing to improve her image, Peters completed extra work and extended her networking efforts. By summer's end, Peters remained unsure whether a job offer would be forthcoming. In this case students examine Peters' performance and TR's culture before discussing strategies for building influence. This is the first part of a two-part case study.

Professor Abrahamson studies the creation, spread, use and rejection of innovative techniques for managing organizations and their employees. He is best known for his work on fads and fashions in management techniques. He is also an expert on the management of organizational change. He has explored the topic of change management in Change Without Pain: How Managers Can Overcome Initiative Overload, Organizational Chaos...

Professor Jick is a leading expert in Leadership and Organizational Change. He has had a long career of both academic and consulting work in this field, and he has built a pair of highly popular courses at CBS called "Organizational Change", and "Advanced Organizational Change." His textbook, Managing Change, has been the leading offering in the field for the last...